Here is a link to a post on Facebook about a map of the Moutohora Branch drawn by Graeme Jupp who is a retired professional cartographer.

If you are not a member of the group the post appeared in you will have to join, if they won’t let you in too bad, I can’t do anything about it.

The map resembles the style of the old NZ Topo 260 maps which Graeme created in his professional work. It is quite different looking from the maps I produce.

This post is not in any way denigrating the differences. It is largely of interest to me to see a similar type of map created and published even if it looks quite different.

Whereas Graeme has focused on producing a bespoke map of an individual line I have focused on using the GIS software to “mass produce” maps of the whole country and that approach is what I believe is the right one for me to create the maps that cover every square centimetre of New Zealand. Most of the effort I am doing is going into working with aerial photography whether current or historical to show the layouts of particular stations on each line and that is the particular level of customisation I feel I want to focus on for each map. Graeme’s map has a lot more research in various archives involved from producing it, from various sources that I don’t feel I have the time to spend looking up. Apart from one visit to Dunedin Archives last year the majority of research I have done is online, which means from aerial photographs rather than railways records.

Volume 5 of the maps for the PNGL will be updated as I have referenced it many times, it will be concurrent with some other areas but won’t get a lot of attention until the Central Otago stuff is completed. 

In the past I have talked about online platforms for maps. There simply isn’t a suitable platform for NZ Rail Maps to go online in a virtual globe format in the foreseeable future. Open Street Maps is not a platform where anyone can create historical data. It looked like they would be a promising option in the early days of the platform but they have refocused and it would not be possible to add the wealth of historical data that is in NZ Rail Maps into the OSM platform. Google Maps is too limiting so that only leaves the present platform which of course is going to continue for a long time.